Community activists are the stars of International Day Against DRM

Submitted by Zak Rogoff on May 7, 2015 - 12:15pm

Yesterday, people all over the world spoke out against Digital Restrictions Management with flyering, rallies, jam sessions, and writings. The ninth International Day Against DRM was a landslide of community activism in support of media users' rights.

Protestors at the New York City Apple store were evicted by uncomfortable security guards. Principled cooks in Italy created painfully spicy -- but tasty-looking -- DRM-themed snacks to illustrate the bait-and-switch deception of DRM-encumbered media. And a solitary activist took on the entire University of Illinois at Chicago campus with nothing but a few hundred flyers and an unflappable attitude. As of the time of this writing, we've heard about three times as many organized events as last year, a total of fifteen. Great job, anti-DRM community!

Organizations made their own statements with a coalition letter supporting the right to tinker by the Free Software Foundation Europe, another by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and sales by DRM-free bookstores O'Reilly, Packt Publishing, Leanpub, No Starch Press, and 0s & 1s.

This was an empowering and memorable ninth International Day Against DRM, and it shows our efforts to raise public awareness about DRM are working. But our work is far from over. We need to keep sharing educational resources about the problem of DRM, taking action and supporting DRM-free media. And if you can spare $10 or $15 to help us hire more staff for our tiny Defective by Design team, we'd love that too. :)

Stay in touch

We'll be announcing the date for International Day Against DRM 2016 soon. To be notified when we set the date, and to make sure you hear about International Day Against DRM events in your area, be sure to sign up for the announcement mailing list.

Defective by Design organizers and community members are also in our freenode IRC channel, #dbd, year-round. Come and chat with us!

Interested in organizing an event next year?

Let us know at info@defectivebydesign.org and we'll send you advance reminders and resources leading up to the day.